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Rocket.Chat

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Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: 2 of 4 dimensions proven

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Rocket.Chat Technologies Corp. · www.rocket.chat

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Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The Platform Engineer

Weighted verdict

Would rather run it than rent it, and wants to know whether that is a supported deployment or a hobby build. Cares about open protocols, federation, a plugin system with real permissions, and an upgrade path that does not orphan the customisations.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The Platform Engineer

Channels, threads & search

How this is scored

The daily surface: channel model, threading, mentions, files, and whether search can find a decision made eighteen months ago.

0 — Flat group chats with no threads; search covers recent messages only, and history is capped.

3 — Channels and direct messages with basic search, but threading is awkward or absent and file handling is a plain attachment list.

5 — Public and private channels, real threads, mentions and reactions, file sharing with previews, and full-text search across the whole history.

8 — Cross-organisation or guest channels with clear boundaries, message editing history, pinned and saved items, search with filters by channel, person and date, and a documented history limit or none at all.

10 — The archive is a working knowledge base: search that ranks well across years, threads that stay readable, channel lifecycle management (archive, rename, merge) without losing history, and export of a conversation in a form a human can read.

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The Platform Engineer

The evidence proves messaging, voice, video and screen share exist and nothing else — no channel model, no threading, no search, no history handling. For a criterion about whether search can find an eighteen-month-old decision, total silence on the subject is the answer. 1

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Encryption & access control

How this is scored

What is encrypted and against whom, plus who can reach which room. Judged on documented mechanism, since "encrypted" in this category usually means the vendor holds the keys.

0 — Transport encryption only, undocumented; no role model beyond admin, guests indistinguishable from members.

3 — TLS and encryption at rest with vendor-held keys, basic roles, and guest access that mostly works.

5 — The above plus configurable roles per channel, SSO, guest accounts with scoped visibility, and a clear statement of what the vendor can read.

8 — Optional end-to-end encryption for direct messages or private rooms with the trade-offs named, device verification, session management an admin can revoke, and documented key handling.

10 — End-to-end encryption as a first-class mode — documented or open cryptography, cross-device key management that ordinary users survive, identity verification, and the vendor stating plainly what it cannot decrypt.

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The Platform Engineer

"Fully encrypted conversations" and "advanced access and identity controls" are asserted with zero documented mechanism — no key handling, no device verification, no statement of what anyone can read. By this category's own rule, undocumented encryption means keys held by whoever runs the server until proven otherwise. 1

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Retention, discovery & co-determination

How this is scored

The archive as a legal object: retention policies, export for discovery, audit, and the monitoring features a works council will ask to have switched off.

0 — No retention policy, no export beyond a manual copy, no audit log, and presence or activity analytics that cannot be disabled.

3 — Manual export of some data and a global history limit, but no per-channel retention, no audit log and no admin control over analytics.

5 — Configurable retention per channel or workspace, admin export in a documented format, an audit log of administrative actions, and status or presence that a user can control.

8 — Legal-hold and eDiscovery export including edits and deletions, retention executed per policy and evidenced, full admin audit trail, and activity analytics switchable off organisation-wide.

10 — Built to pass a works agreement and a subpoena on the same day: granular retention with documented deletion, discovery export a lawyer can use, complete audit, and no individual-level productivity scoring anywhere in the product.

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The Platform Engineer

Granular retention and comprehensive audit logs are claimed as adjectives, but no export format, legal hold, eDiscovery capability or analytics control is evidenced anywhere. Retention and audit posture asserted, discovery artefacts absent — that's the gap between rubric level 3 and 5, landed just above 3. 1

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Deployment & data custody

How this is scored

Whether the customer can hold their own archive: self-hosting, private cloud, open source, federation, and what an exit actually looks like.

0 — Cloud-only, proprietary, with export limited to a partial archive.

3 — Cloud-only, but with a documented full export in an open-ish format.

5 — A private-cloud or dedicated-instance option, or a self-hosted edition that lags the cloud significantly; full export documented.

8 — A genuine self-hosted edition close to feature parity, or open-source core with a documented upgrade path, plus complete export including files and metadata.

10 — Custody is the customer's: open-source or source-available server, self-hosting supported as a first-class deployment, open protocol or federation, and a migration path in and out that the vendor documents rather than resists.

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The Platform Engineer

Open-source code on GitHub, self-hosting and full air-gap as headline deployments backed by 40+ classified programs, plus enumerated on-prem/private cloud/VPC/air-gap options — custody is a supported deployment here, not a hobby build. It stops short of 10 because the evidence shows no open protocol or federation and no documented migration path; "No friction. No vendor lock-in" is a slogan, not a runbook. 1 2

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Integrations & extensibility

How this is scored

Bots, webhooks, app framework, identity — whether the chat becomes the place work is noticed, and whether that is buildable without a partner agreement.

0 — No API, no webhooks, no bots.

3 — Incoming webhooks and a handful of native integrations; no bot framework, no documented limits.

5 — Documented REST API, incoming and outgoing webhooks, slash commands, a bot account model, and SSO.

8 — A proper app framework with interactive components, event subscriptions with retries, SCIM provisioning, documented rate limits and a sandbox.

10 — A platform: versioned API with a deprecation policy, an app directory or plugin system with permissions a customer can audit, and integrations the vendor maintains rather than lists.

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The Platform Engineer

Pre-built plus custom app development with developer guides is a genuine app-framework posture, but there is no evidence of API versioning or a deprecation policy, no app permission model a customer can audit, no SCIM, no documented rate limits. Buildable without a partner agreement — likely; auditable — unevidenced. 1

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Where the archive and its metadata live, who the contracting entity is, which subprocessors touch it. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline; scored here as this buyer weighs it.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting unstated or non-EU, subprocessors unnamed.

3 — EU data residency offered for message content while metadata, search indexes or support tooling remain non-EU, or the contracting entity sits outside the EU.

5 — EU hosting as standard and an EU contracting entity, but parts of the chain — notifications, AI features, analytics — are non-EU without an explained safeguard.

8 — EU hosting on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, full subprocessor list published, any non-EU processing named with its legal basis.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: vendor, entity, hosting and every subprocessor European, certification published, and a self-hosted option that removes the question.

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The Platform Engineer

No sovereignty attributes on record, the contracting entity is a US Delaware corporation with subprocessors unnamed, and the only EU-hosting data point is a customer's own AWS deployment — that's rubric level 3 territory. Genuine self-hosting and air-gap options let you drop the vendor from the data path entirely, which is the only reason I lift it above 3. 1 2

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Pricing transparency

How this is scored

Whether a buyer can compute the annual invoice for their headcount — including the retention, compliance and guest features they actually need — from public pages alone.

0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.

3 — A per-user headline exists, but the tier where retention control, SSO or compliance export begins is unstated.

5 — Per-user prices public with billing period stated, but at least one commonly needed capability (unlimited history, SSO, eDiscovery) sits in an unpriced enterprise tier.

8 — Every tier priced publicly with per-user maths, history and storage limits, feature boundaries, minimum term and VAT treatment stated; self-hosted licensing priced too where offered.

10 — Complete price computability: annual invoice derivable for a given headcount and deployment choice, including guest users, storage and any per-instance licence.

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The Platform Engineer

A pricing page exists and names Starter, Commercial, Government and Defense targets, but the evidence contains no actual price, billing period, history limit or feature boundary — I cannot compute an annual invoice from this. Features starred as "planned for release in 2026" mean the page is selling roadmap, not product. 2

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European sovereignty — proven facts

2 of 4 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Ownership Not determined — uncited Report an error
Data residency EU optional ⚠ unverified 1/3 pts 1 Report an error
Subprocessors US CLOUD Act reach ⚠ unverified 0/2 pts 1 Report an error

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

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Sources (13)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Vendor homepage www.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Pricing www.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 +2 earlier captures: 11 Sep 2026, 31 Aug 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Terms of service docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Channels, threads & search — found from sitemap docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Channels, threads & search — found from sitemap docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Encryption & access control — found from sitemap docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Encryption & access control — found from sitemap docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Retention, discovery & co-determination — found from sitemap docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  9. 9 Retention, discovery & co-determination — found from sitemap docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  10. 10 Deployment & data custody — found from sitemap docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  11. 11 Deployment & data custody — found from sitemap docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  12. 12 Integrations & extensibility — found from sitemap docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  13. 13 Integrations & extensibility — found from sitemap docs.rocket.chat Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →